Samuel did not break stride or even slow. He walked to meet his attacker. If this were to end well, it would have to end quickly. One outcry and the guards would come running. They were not yet out of earshot. The squawk of the radio voice reached him as a distant echo.
He raised an arm in defense, and the watcher stabbed. The tip of the blade caught metal beneath the fabric of the sleeve and slid off to slash a long tear in the flesh to Samuel’s elbow. Before the other man could bring the blade back for a return slash, Samuel ducked under the defensive arm. He drew his own weapon at the same time, a needle-like rondel with a triangular blade, a favorite among Gaulish assassins.
Samuel drove the blade up in a short piston movement to puncture the soft flesh behind the point of the other man’s jaw. He could feel the impact, then the yielding through the ivory handle as the force of the point punctured the man’s palate and drove into the soft meat of the brain. Samuel gave the dagger a savage twist. His opponent went limp. Samuel embraced the man to take his weight and lowered the corpse to the tiles without a sound. Even in death, the man kept a grip on his own blade so that it did not fall to create a clatter on the tiles.
He wiped his blade on the dark fabric of the man’s clothing and returned the rondel to the scabbard cleverly concealed in the lining of his jacket. He then plucked the pugio from the man’s dead grip. Standing astraddle the corpse, Samuel thrust the point of the pugio into the man’s throat to follow the path of the wound made by his own weapon. It might appear to be a suicide long enough for Samuel to accomplish his business in the Blue City and move on.
Taking the dead man beneath the arms, Samuel dragged him into a shadowy recess between two shop fronts and propped him against a wall. He made a quick search of the body. The man wore a medallion beneath his shirtfront, a golden bull on a chain. A former soldier, and probably a guard when his service was done. He stuck the medallion into the man’s slack mouth and left the chain dangling from the teeth. The final gesture of a man faced with no other escape from dishonor.
Samuel stood and inspected himself. There was no blood on him but his own. The other man had died too swiftly to bleed. He took his jacket off, draped it over the wounded arm, and continued on his way toward his appointment.
As he exited the mall, he was joined by the first of the commuters making their way toward their places of work or stops for surface transit. The sun was just beginning to show over the surrounding mountain peaks. A shaft of sunlight found the head of the massive brass eagle that towered ten stories above the central plaza.
Samuel imagined that the gargantuan bird had its predator gaze on him alone as he crossed the broad space. There were others walking here as well, and he lost himself among them on the way to an appointment he was already thirty years late for.
12
The War Room
Time meant everything when you moved in it. It meant nothing when you moved through it.
The Rangers would get there when they got there. They picked a date of September 1, 16 AD for their arrival target back in The Then. That was the Nones of Sextilis by the lunar calendar that the Romans used. That was two weeks ahead of the abduction of the Nazarenes and enough time to get ashore and cover the ground they’d need to cover to set up an ambush along the road which the slave caravan would travel. Jimmy Smalls argued for more time in-country but Dwayne and the other nixed the idea. The less exposure, the better. For once Morris Tauber agreed with the Rangers’ consensus.
That was the last time they’d all agree.
They gave themselves thirty days in The Now to plan, prep, and deploy.
Lee handled procuring all the ordnance expect for body armor. Jimbo said he had a guy for that. Boats charted a course for them using their standard bullshit excuse of the Raj being a science vessel involved in a study of ocean temperatures. Dr. Tauber managed to locate Parviz and Quebat in Copenhagen. He asked if they could cut their vacation short by a week and return aboard the Raj to look after “the baby.” The infant in question was the nuclear mini-reactor concealed and shielded in the hold of the container ship.
Boats offered a two-week leave to his crew of Ethiopians. To a man, they opted to stay on. The pay was good and in cash. They all preferred to stay on and build their bankrolls doing needed maintenance on board. His first mate, a wiry man of indeterminate age behind a black hedgerow of beard, was named Geteye. He made sure all hands earned that pay. Every ocean-going vessel had an endless chore list and the Raj was not a new ship by any means.
Dwayne and Lee worked up a rough timeline for the mission and presented it to the team for suggestions.
“Not to take a dump in your chili,” Boats broke in on the presentation in the Raj’s chartroom. “But we’re going to have to anchor in deep water, guys. The Israelis are all over the Med in the region you want to go into. They’re going to be on us at the first sign of fireworks.”
“How far offshore?” Lee asked the red-bearded former SEAL.
“Twenty miles or more. And that’s cutting it close.”
“The surge needed for manifestation looks like a natural weather event for the most part,” Morris Tauber offered.
“Those Jews are twitchy, Doc.
